The missing option

When the second season of The Office ended with Jim finally telling Pam he loved her, I had to wonder what they would do with the third season. There was no way they were getting rid of either of two of the best characters and there was no way they were going to get together. Getting together equals living happily ever after (and no more advertising revenue) while staying apart with lots of torment and sexual tension brings the hearts and spending dollars of the masses back for more and more (but would be unbelievable). I couldn't imagine the show going forward with them together or apart. There had to be a third option. When I finally saw what that option was... it was brilliant. Yet obvious enough that I felt really stupid.

Subject change to ex-gay efforts. Criticisms of ex-gays often focus on the therapy that is supposed to have accomplished it for them. Reparative therapy is extremely inefficient, even by the most favorable data, succeeding in only a fraction of the folks who undergo the therapy. Those whose blogs I've read who have tried reparative therapy in one form or another haven't found much (if any) change in their sexual orientation. But some folks reportedly have changed, and I'm left to wonder if the therapy was incidental--a confounder in the real journey that only obscures the actual events that contributed to change.

Through Sam's blog I found a great blog that discusses ex-gay ministries. The author describes her objections to reparative therapy and the psychological theories behind it in a post that concludes with a description of an alternate approach that she found more effective. While I appreciate her approach and agree that it could be workable for lots of folks, I wonder if there's not something better... something brilliant that I haven't run across yet. Maybe it hasn't even been figured out yet. There may be an option for someone like me that I'm not even aware of. I'll try to put my finger on it, but if any of you find a missing option, let me know.